Gold
In this short weekly report, we review some of the most common questions clients asked us in the last few weeks.
Markets continue to be tossed to and fro by central-bank policy, and risks of higher commodity prices. These are due to fiscal stimulus and exogenous weather and war-related risk, which could send food and energy prices higher this winter. We remain long gold outright, energy and metals producers via the XOP, XME and PICK ETFs, direct commodity exposure via the COMT ETF, and futures exposure to backwardation in copper (long 4Q23 copper futures vs. short 4Q24 copper futures).
Recession is on track to start around year-end. Stocks usually peak shortly before recession begins. So, position defensively but be prepared for a few more months of the rally.
We build a four-stage business cycle framework based on economic growth and capacity utilization, and then analyze historical returns for most major asset allocation decisions for each stage. Given that we are in the early recession stage (negative growth coupled and an overheated economy), our framework recommends a defensive positioning across all asset classes.
In this Strategy Outlook, we present the major investment themes and views we see playing out for the rest of 2023 and beyond.
Once the debt ceiling soap opera ends, investors will likely turn their attention to some of the tailwinds supporting stocks. These include stronger earnings growth, diminished bank stresses, better housing data, early signs of an upleg in the manufacturing cycle, the prospects of an AI-driven productivity boom, and the fact that labor slack has managed to increase without rising unemployment. Investors should resist turning bearish on stocks for now but look to become more defensive later this year.
In Section I, we review the three possible economic scenarios over the coming year, and underscore that the “soft landing” scenario remains improbable. A “no landing” scenario could occur, but it would ultimately lead back to the recessionary path and thus is not a basis for investors to maintain pro-risk portfolio positions. US stock prices continue to be buoyed by rate cut expectations, but nonrecessionary cuts still appear to be a long way off. In Section II, we present our best estimate of the inflationary threshold that results in a positive or negative stock price / bond yield (SBY) correlation, and whether investors are likely to approach this level over the coming one-to-two years. US core inflation does not likely need to return to the Fed’s target in order for the SBY correlation to return to positive territory, but a move back to a positive correlation will very likely occur in the context of falling equity prices.
The crisis hitting regional and local banks in the US is adding to oil-price volatility and gold demand. The crisis arguably is fallout from the Fed’s aggressive monetary policy tightening, and contributes to the upending economic relationships that reliably informed policy, investments and forecasts in the past. This feeds into higher price volatility, which reduces liquidity in the short run, and impedes capex in the long run, which limits future supply growth.